So one of the benefits of belonging to a playgroup is that you occasionally get to see things that pass the mainstream by. I saw the movie Igor literally years before it came out on DVD here and I don't know if it was ever released in theaters.

Today I saw another interesting little gem when we had a group showing of a movie called The Magic Roundabout, apparently based on an old kids series.

How to describe this movie? The plot is started when a sugar addicted dog crashes a motorcycle into a magic carousel and frees and evil jack in the box who's been imprisoned there ten thousand years. One of the characters is a talking train that only we can actually hear.

Oh, and at one point the bad guy rips the diamond heart out of another character's chest. There's also a rabbit name Dylan (after the singer) who is told at one point that they 'don't have time to experiment with recreational activities' when he mentions he has something 'stashed away'.

It's quite... unique.

It would have been more popular I am sure but there was one snag. An American redub. This inserted the much needed American voices and poop jokes while carefully cutting out that extraneous stuff that required you to think.

I have found out that the BBC's English series made no sense... because they didn't pay for the French scripts and so just made up plot as they went along. (Well... the cow is riding something... maybe she thinks she's a bus? Yeah. That sounds good.)

Levellass wrote:I have found out that the BBC's English series made no sense... because they didn't pay for the French scripts and so just made up plot as they went along. (Well... the cow is riding something... maybe she thinks she's a bus? Yeah. That sounds good.)

You see CG companies are quite literally bottom of the heap in Hollywood. If you kill one, you go and get another, no tears shed. So it is that when Bill Westenhofer was doing his acceptance speech for these very special effects he:

'thanked Rhythm & Hues, which he said was experiencing “severe financial difficulties.” He didn’t get a chance to expound upon the difficulties plaguing the visual-effects industry, which has so far seen two bankruptcy filings, as the ominous chords of the theme from “Jaws” sounded to play him off the stage.'

Levellass wrote:you don't want to hear what happens if the company goes bankrupt *before* the movie is finished.

oh I think we do
i'm guessing the workers don't care anymore and just do whatever bullcrap effects in there that they want. like the tiger in the Life of Pi will just be a badly polygonic sphere. that'll be cool.

According to the most common arrangement, "fixed fee," after a certain amount of takes, the VFX guys are forced to cover the costs. What this means is that the studio agrees to pay you X, if the movie costs more than X you HAVE to keep going or be prosecuted even as continuing wrecks your company and sends you into debt. This also means that if you do succeed and the movie makes billions... tough. You've already been paid your fee, go away.